Resident Evil: Project XX
by ScorpionsMischief
Summary: Chris Redfield has spent the last five months in a private hell, dulling his pain and a guilt he cannot explain in cheap whiskey. Suddenly a beautiful woman walks into his bar and turns his life completely upside down, offering him things he doesn't think he deserves. But what happens to them when his memory is restored? ((CR/OFC))


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing but the concept and my OC.

**Author's note**: This story could be a one-shot/one chapter deal unless I decide to spin it out into a maximum three chapter arc (I am undecided at this point).

Reviews are definitely appreciated folks!

* * *

**Prologue**

Mouths brushed, retreated, brushed again. It was she who moaned, she who crushed her lips to his on a hot spurt of hunger, of reckless need. A voice in the back of her head warned her that she couldn't let herself want this, want _him_. She had warned herself about the consequences of allowing herself to want. She'd known when she had been chosen for this assignment that she couldn't let herself get involved, become emotionally invested. He was a target, nothing else. But things had changed that night. Things that she had not been prepared for, had not foreseen as happening. The instant that his lips touched hers needs that had been dormant had come screaming to life. Something inside her had come alive, every nerve fiber had awakened. She hadn't been satisfied with just a small taste, no. She wanted more, needed more. She needed to feel the strength of him, the press of that hard, male body against her own. She craved more of the smoky flavor of him, that blistering heat that was a combination of the whiskey he'd drunk and his frustration and hunger. She needed the silky mating of tongues, the teasing scrape of teeth on flesh, and the heady thrill of his heart pounding in sync with her own. She let out a tiny gasp of pleasure when he changed the angle of the kiss, taking it deeper, taking _her_ deeper. Throwing all caution to the wind she circled his neck with her arms, taking more, offering more, wanting more.

The woman pressed against him set off aches in him that pounded harder than his head the morning after a night of drinking. Soft sounds of need hummed in her throat and surged in his blood. Her skin was like hot velvet, and the feel of it against his palms sent erotic pictures soaring through his brain-desires, demands, a sensual dance that belonged only to the night. Dimly he wondered if he was crazy, if this incredibly passionate, sexy, and willing woman was nothing but an image conjured by his whiskey soaked brain. Through the fog of booze and need he calculated that he could have her inside his hotel room in five minutes. Naked and beneath him in three. "Wait." Dizzy, needs churning towards desperate, he broke the kiss. And saw that she was looking at him with those hypnotic yellow eyes glowing, burning against the shadows surrounding them. He felt his resolve melting, felt himself drowning in that glittering gaze and had to take a moment in which to gather his thoughts, to cool his overheated blood. He felt like a randy and impatient teenager, and just as fumbling considering the amount of alcohol he'd consumed that evening. "Wait," he said again. "We-" he breathed in the scent of jasmine and nearly drowned in it. "-only met a week ago," his voice was raspy, his breathing ragged. He'd needed the oblivion only alcohol offered and had been doing a damn good job of finding it when she had strode into the bar with an air of mystery surrounding her. She had drawn the attention of every male that had been in the bar that night, himself included. It was only to be expected though. She was elusive, exotic, forbidden. A delectable fruit that they had all wanted to sample, to taste. He still did not understand why she had chosen him-belligerent and nasty drunk that he was-to be the recipient of her attention, of her affection. But he had been ridiculously pleased when she had. It had done something for his flagging self-esteem to have this lush and exquisitely delicate flower slip onto the barstool next to him and whisper hello in that low, husky voice.

For the rest of his days, he would never forget this woman with the cat-like eyes and quiet smile that masked an intelligent mind and quick wit, a warm and gentle heart. Who would have believed that after five months of cultivating a _don't-fuck-with-me _attitude that he would find himself seduced, bewitched, captivated by this woman? Maybe it was that he needed to take this risk, feel the flash and the burn, and hunger for the thrill of the forbidden. He felt alive, he realized. More than he had when he'd first awoken in the hospital. But there was a voice in his head warning him that giving into temptation was what had gotten Adam kicked from Eden. "I don't even know your name," he skimmed his fingers up and down her back, ignoring the sly voice reminding him that he did not even know his own name. _Shit, I already know that I don't know who I am_, he thought bitterly.

"Mia." There was a faint smile on her lips as she watched him. His profile wasn't perfect she realized. His dark hair wasn't styled and there were a few wisps of silver at his temples that her fingers ached to run through. She contented herself by skimming her fingers over the strong line of his jaw, down his throat, over his torso. His face and body were noticeably leaner, as if he chose to spend his money on cheap whiskey rather than decent meals. He hadn't shaved that day, and that shadow of stubble turned that already attractive face into something edgy. Sexy. But it was his eyes that were her ultimate undoing. She'd become lost, scorched by the naked emotions she'd glimpsed lurking in those dark brown depths. Those eyes were bloodshot from another night spent searching for oblivion at the bottom of a glass of whiskey, but burning with a restless intensity, with a familiar emptiness that she recognized as loneliness, and a hunger that left her knees wobbly and her pulse galloping crazily. When the shimmer of desire came this time, she didn't try to fight it off. No, she reached for it, stepped towards it, into it. And ignored the venom coursing through her veins, whispering to her that she had a job to do, a contract she'd been sent to fulfill.

Tonight was hers- and she intended to live it as a human woman instead of the cyborg she'd been programmed to be.

"Mia," Even her name was exotic. The details of her, down to the unusual red pendant she wore on a chain around her neck, the subtle scent that surrounded her, etched themselves in his mind. "We shouldn't be doing this." But even as he said it his mouth brushed her cheeks, her temples, skimmed down to graze her neck. "We don't know each other well enough to be doing this." He didn't know _himself_ was the real reason he was hesitating. What little he did know came from the brief flashes of memories that assaulted him in his dreams, in his inebriated state. But none of the things he saw told him his age, his name or whether there was a Mrs. Whatever His Name Was somewhere out there in the world. Some instinctual part of him that was rigid with moral decency and bound by a strict code of honor was telling him that he didn't enter blindly into this type of situation, this type of relationship. But the woman nibbling his ear was making it incredibly difficult to hold onto ethical standards at that moment.

"Is knowing everything about the other really that important at this moment?"

"Yes-no." It really wasn't like he was capable of thinking straight here was his thought.

"Well, which one is it?" Mia rubbed her cheek to his, ran her hands up his back. "Yes or no?"

He answered by yanking her against him and finding her mouth with his. And let his hands roam where they pleased. Need shot through her, hot and heady. Riding on it, she pulled at his shirt, arched against his hands. And thrilled at the first scrape of callused fingers over her flesh. "Hotel." He knew this was crazy, and he was pretty damned sure that he was going to regret giving in come morning, but resisting was no longer an option. "I have a room at the hotel."

She leaned in, nipped sharply at his bottom lip. "Better hurry," she whispered against his mouth. A quick, laughing moan escaped her when he swung her into his arms. Impatient, he strode into the empty hotel lobby, up the stairs and down the hall to his room. He stumbled only once when Mia, who was in the perfect position, gave his throat a little scrape with her teeth.

"Goddamn it, what's wrong with this door?" Even as he vented his annoyance by rapping his hip hard against it, it flew open. They ended up in a heap on the floor, half in, and half out of the room.

"Well, the door's fixed," Mia giggled even as her fingers worked busily at the buttons on his shirt.

"Wait. Let me-" He managed to roll, scoot, and kick the door shut. The room was plunged into shadows and moonlight. The floor was hard as stone. Neither of them gave it much notice as they rolled, tore and tugged at clothing. He caught glimpses, beautiful, delightful images of pale skin, soft curves, delicate lines. He wanted to look. He wanted to touch. He wanted to take. And in that moment where hearts and souls become one, they were caught close, bound together by emotional ropes thicker, tighter than any physical chains. Need became the leader, and desire, the map. Each surrendered to the other without hesitation or regret, without reservation or consideration for what tomorrow would bring.

* * *

A storm was brewing. Though the skies remained clear and calm, a storm was brewing. Its violence ripped into his dreams and tossed him helplessly into the past just after midnight. _The bomber crashed in what appeared to be a perfectly appalling world of molten lava surrounded by glittering obsidian_. He watched himself _creep down the bomber's landing ramp and immediately become enveloped by an atmosphere choked with dense smoke and cinders._ He saw himself _pull a Beretta from its holster, watched as he swayed when the lava bank beneath his feet crumbled, and sent him sliding down onto the black sand_. In sleep he turned his head away, resisted the pull of memory. He didn't want to go back to this place. Not ever again. _But a roar louder even than the volcanoes eruption came from the lava field ahead; burning rocks clattered around them, crumbled into the lake of fire. Lava closed over them and they melted to their constituent molecule and dissolved into the flow. The river dropped away in a vertical sheet of fire that vanished into boiling clouds of smoke and gases. The volcano hummed with death at his back, and he saw himself turn to stare at that burning pit, his face awash with bone-deep weariness and shadowed by pain. A flash of silver caught both his and the woman's eye and together they turned to stare at an elongated cylinder half-buried in the black sand, it's casing shining through the smoke and cinders, picking up the glare of white hot lava_.

He felt the dread that pervaded his other self, the fear and the anxiety. He saw _himself step towards the canister and read the words emblazoned along one side: __**Uroboros**__. _Instinctively he knew that what was in that canister was beyond the scope of human comprehension, beyond pure and simple evil. He shuddered with his fear, with his rising panic and fear and reached for the woman that was asleep next to him, reached for her familiar warmth and comfort, for her safety and protection from the flow of memories that were calling out to him, whispering to him about things that he didn't care to remember. Any second now this dream would give way to the _other_ dream, the one that he dreaded with every fiber of his being, that he couldn't avoid awake or asleep, sober or drunk. That dream was always the same: the young soldier was reaching out towards him from the darkness, begging for his help, entreating for him to save him before he became encased in a glittering carbonate cocoon. He hated that dream, hated the inexplicable guilt and grief that infused him after he had had that particular dream. But tonight was going to be different. Tonight was going to bring him a few of the answers that his mind had been taunting him with these long and frustrating months.

_From the boiling smoke that came over the top of the burning ruins of the bomber came a man superiorly built. Long legs, toned and muscled were encased in black leather. Long arms, sleek biceps rippling had been left bare. His torso and abdomen were a series of hard planes and well-defined muscles. The man was built like a brick powerhouse; there was absolutely no other way to describe him._ And he knew that the man was every inch as dangerous. _"I should've killed you years ago…" the man said in a deep baritone that was colder than the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. His face twisted into a gruesome mask, his yellow eyes burned with feral hatred. "Chris." _

_As one, Chris and the woman turned to face the man, their guns aimed at his heart. "Your mistake," _he heard himself say. _"It's over, Wesker!"_

_"__Over?" Wesker's lips peeled off his teeth and he chuckled, without humor. "I'm just getting started." They watched; horrified and unable to do anything, as Wesker turned and slammed his fist into the sole canister of __**Uroboros**__ that was beneath his feet. A savage growl burst from Wesker as a thousand blackish, leech-like tentacles sprang from the canister and affixed to his arm; wrapped around several discarded shards of metal and sputtering circuitry before attaching themselves most of Wesker's upper torso. "Time to die, Chris." Wesker's voice had gone deeper than a well and blacker than the obsidian cliffs. With an almost inhuman roar, he flew up into the air, using his superhuman abilities and his transformed body to launch himself at them._

Chris awoke to the blast of thunder and the jagged rip of lightning. Awoke to fear, cold and clammy as it slithered like a snake over his skin. He swung his legs onto the floor, stood. But the minute he was standing, he was stricken with a wave of nausea that rolled thick and greasy through his belly. He stumbled to the bathroom, was hideously ill. When his belly was empty, he lay on the cold floor and waited for the shaking to pass. He felt hands rub at his back, warm and soothing, gentle and comforting. "Get away from me," he said weakly, though the smell of her, the feel of her was both seductive and comforting. "Just leave me the hell alone."

"Hush," she said gently. Exhaustion-and the desperate fear churning through him-had him gripping her hand, hard enough to grind bone to bone. He relaxed his fingers, but did not let go. Mia shifted, so she could lay his head in her lap. And there she stroked his hair, not seeming to notice or to care that they were sitting naked on his bathroom floor, in the dark. Chris might have laughed at the absurdity if he wasn't shaking so violently. Mia had known something was wrong when she had awoken and heard him retching in the bathroom. At first she had believed it to be nothing but the price of a night spent drinking and had been half tempted to let him suffer the price of his overindulgence alone. Taking pity on him she had gone to offer what little help and comfort she could. But one look at the wild fear and desperate panic that had been upon his pale face had been enough to tell her that this was much more than a simple hangover. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," he mumbled. "Drank too much whiskey is all."

"Too much whiskey was why you vomited," she said quietly. "But is it why your face is as pale as a ghost?"

He sat up, not looking at her, with the press of the memory still clear in his mind and dredging up emotions and a world of questions that he still had no answers for. At least one of the empty chasms had been bridged- he knew now that his first name was Chris and that the blonde-haired man he kept dreaming about was a man named Wesker. He just had no idea why the man hated him so vehemently, or why he and the dark skinned woman had been pursuing the man across volcanic mountains and black plains. There was still a world of things he didn't know or understand. Things he couldn't explain to her any more than he could explain them to himself. There was a big, empty world between them, he told himself. And yet he'd never felt closer to anyone as he did her at that moment. It wasn't because they'd just had sex, he told himself. Even before they had slept together he had felt like he could confess his shameful secret to her and not have her judge him, or make fun of him for it. The beautiful yellow-eyed brunette who'd been playfully seductive, then sweetly passionate, then warmly supportive all in one night had brought him to his knees. It was rare for him to want to be coddled and soothed, but he wanted that so badly now that he ached with it. "Mia-"

"Yes?"

"It wasn't the..." he paused for a moment. "It wasn't the whiskey," he said quietly. "I had a... nightmare." No, not a nightmare, he thought. It was a memory, a blend of events that had happened and shaped the man he had been. He'd recognized his face- a little bit younger and not weathered by whatever events that had occurred after his confrontation with this man, Wesker. But how could he explain that while he had dreamed about something that had happened in his past, that he had no recollection of the events that came before or after what he'd seen? That next to his name and the name of the man he was fighting in the dream, that he knew absolutely nothing about himself? "I had a nightmare," he said again.

"Do you want me to turn on the light, get you a glass of water?"

"No, just... no," he raised his head to look at her. "Would you... would you just hold on to me, _please?"_

"Sure, come here." This wasn't just a nightmare, she thought as she put her arms around him. Nightmares were bad business, she knew. She had had enough nightmares of her own to know how emotionally draining they could be. But she didn't think that it was a nightmare causing the gut-wrenching fear and anguish she saw on his face. There was something not right here, Mia thought, stroking a hand over his hair. "Why don't you tell me about the dream," she suggested gently. "It'll help if you talk about it."

"Yea, alright." Chris rested his head under her breasts, listened to her heartbeat. And told her about what he'd seen, sparring no detail and leaving nothing out of the telling. And in telling her felt some of his shame and anger, and a good deal of the dread that crawled through him like worms burrowing through dirt, begin to dissipate and disappear. It was like a weight had been lifted from him. Instead of seeing darkness at the end of the tunnel, he saw a small sliver of light beginning to form instead.

"You have amnesia." She didn't phrase it as a question because the answer was abundantly clear. Chris answered her anyway, a one word syllable muttered in a voice so low that she almost didn't hear it;

"Yes."

"Oh, baby." Mia's voice was ripe with sympathy. She lowered her head, closing her eyes as she rest her cheek on his hair. Sympathy turned to fury a minute later, a raging flood of anger that she smothered with an extreme force of will. The Agency had lied to her, she thought savagely. Lied to her and manipulated her. Her handler at the GPA-the Global Pharmaceutical Agency- had told her that the B.S.A.A as well as their top operative, Chris Redfield, were an evil that needed to be extinguished. He'd told her that it was her duty and obligation to see this man dead for his part in the murder of the man who would have saved humanity from extinction. All the Intel that she had been made to sift through, all the footage that she had been forced to watch had showed her that this man, along with his female partner, had manipulated Albert Wesker into injecting himself with **Uroboros** before killing him. "They justified Weaker's murder by claiming it was justifiable homicide because of his infection," he had told her.

Mia labeled it as another carefully constructed lie that the Agency had told her.

The man in her arms was far from a genocidal, homicidal maniac bent on destroying the world so that he could rebuild it in his own likeness. She sensed no inherent evil in this man, had witnessed no signs of cruelty, or glimpses of an abusive nature. Even when he had picked fights at the bar he had fought like a man with discipline, never taking a low road or using a cheap shot in order to best his opponent. The only part of what her handler had told her, that she knew for a fact was true, was that Chris had killed Albert Wesker. But he had not killed the man in the cold-blooded fashion that her handler and the Agency said he had. Suddenly, Chris's excessive drinking, moodiness and propensity for violence, his extreme disregard for his appearance and the social graces, his self-loathing and extreme guilt, the nightmare, all made sense. The only reason that he had allowed her to get close to him- that he had allowed himself to become intimate with her in fact-was because he had no idea that it was outside his normal pattern of behavior. Guilt churned in her. That voice in the back of her mind again reminded her about why it was a mistake to get involved, to become emotionally invested. But there was no turning back now, not that she would have been able to had she even wanted too. If she had followed through with her orders, she thought now, fury returning to choke her, she would have murdered an innocent man. "What exactly do you remember about your life?"

"That my name is Chris," his voice was edgy now. He did not hear the cold anger infusing her tone, nor saw the fury that stained her pale cheeks with ripe color. He had no idea that the woman he was clinging too, that just hours before he'd made love too, was an assassin that had been sent to kill him. Or that that fact was now ripping apart that woman emotionally. "And that the name of the man that I was fighting in the dream is Wesker." He blew out a breath. "Everything else about my past is nothing but a goddamn blank."

Mia's face registered no shock, no judgment. "Why did you leave the hospital if you had no recollection of who you were?" There was no censure in the question, no slick surface of pity or underlying smugness. She simply asked the question in a soft but matter-of-fact tone. Chris responded in kind.

"I couldn't stand the whispers and the looks that I received from the doctors and nurses. So I split." It wasn't a total lie he told himself. The pitying looks, simpering expressions of concern, false conveyances of sorrow over his "regrettable condition" as his doctor called it, _had_ driven him mad. He just didn't add that his decision had also been based on the uncontrollable guilt, the crushing grief and deep-seeded anger and hatred he felt towards himself.

"Chris, you're alone here. And as much as it might piss you off to hear this," she said firmly. "You're vulnerable." Guilt burned in the back of her throat, had hard fists pressing down on her chest, gripping her heart in a vise. "You should go back to the hospital and at least see what information that they can give to you," she added. "Maybe you'll find out you have family nearby, or friends that can help you while you work on getting your memory back."

"Say it again."

"Say it again... " confused, Mia pushed a hand through her hair. "Say what again?"

"My name. Say my name," he lifted his head to gaze at her with an emotion so powerful that it stole her breath. She found herself wondering what it must be like to not know anything about yourself, least of all your own name. It was a daunting and terrifying thought.

_Oh, baby_, she thought again. Reaching out she trailed a finger down his cheek. "Chris," her voice was like silk he thought-soft and sexy. "Do you-" gently, she brushed his lips with hers. "Want me to say your name again? Because I will."

His heart stumbled, but years of experience that was hard to forget told him how to land on his feet. Reaching out, he gathered her hair in his hand. "I think we should-" he nipped at her lip. "-continue this conversation in bed."

Mia liked the way he kissed without quite kissing, the way he held her without really holding her. She well remembered what it had been like when he'd thoroughly done both. It was a memory she would treasure in the lonely days that lay ahead. "Alright..." she sent him a quick, wicked smile. "Chris."

"I've created a monster, haven't I?" He lowered his mouth to hers in a kiss that warmed rather than burned. The tenderness of it, the sweetness, crept into her heart and imprinted itself on her soul. When he lifted her into his arms, she lay her head on his shoulder, knowing it was the last time they would be together like this. He carried her into the bedroom and over to the old bed that shifted quietly under their weight. Later, he told himself as he lost himself in her, he would think about what he was going to do with her, to do with this need he felt for her, this desire to shelter and protect her.

* * *

Morning had to come. She was prepared for it when it did. There were things that had to be done, steps that had to be taken, and while she would take them without hesitation she would not, she told herself, take them without regret. The sun was barely over the horizon when she slid from the bed and pulled on her clothes. She took one last glance at Chris, how he looked while sleeping comfortably in the bed, completely unaware of the Agency that sought his death. For a moment she allowed herself to think about what might have been- could have been had their lives, their paths been different. Tears blurred her vision. Was this what it felt like to care for someone? she wondered. She'd never believed herself capable of loving anyone but her twin brother, had never thought about falling in love with a man or forming an intimate relationship with him.

There were a myriad of unfamiliar emotions aching inside her. He was the first and he would be the last, that much she knew. This last week that she had spent with him had been the happiest she could ever remember being. Her life since her "birth" had been spent at the asylum, training and learning the various forms of combat necessary for the super-soldiers of the future. Both her and her brother had been kept under constant supervision by the team of doctors that worked for the GPA. Every move the siblings made was monitored, every trait they exhibited recorded. Even though they shared the same DNA, experience as well as the manner in which their bodies coded and adapted to the genetic modifiers exerted a profound impact on personality, on particular skills that granted each of them a decidedly different identity. _Matthew would have killed Chris the first night, without concern and without any hesitations_, she thought, sitting to pull on her boots.

Now that she had been awoken to the Machiavellian ways of the Agency, she saw through their lies and multiplicity, saw the manner in which they used manipulation in order to achieve their objective of global domination. Leaving him was the best thing she could do for him, was the only thing she could do that was right. Determined to not only keep him safe but to make amends for her involvement in the Agency's plot against him, she had decided to confront her Agency and tear the organization down, piece by piece. Turning her back on the Agency was likely going to result in them coming after her, would likely result in her own death, but she told herself it was what had to be done. She reached up and removed her necklace, set it atop the letter she had penned him, and then, after one final glance at the man unaware of the fate he had narrowly avoided, she closed the door behind her.

* * *

Chris woke at noon, very slowly. He immediately realized that he was alone in the hotel room. _Did she ever tell me where it was she worked?_ He couldn't remember. Chris picked up his pack of cigarettes and looked for a match. He paused when he spied the red pendant on its silver chain sitting atop a piece of paper next to the cigarettes on the nightstand. He reached over and picked it up. There was something odd about the gemstone he realized, almost as if it wasn't a stone at all. He held the pendant up to the light and realized that what he had taken for a stone was in actuality a glass vial. _A glass vial of what though_? was what he asked himself. Rolling the vial from side to side revealed the contents were a liquid of some kind. _Poison_?

He picked up the note she'd left and quickly scanned it. His first reaction after he'd finished reading was fury. To be double-crossed by a woman with golden eyes and a sexy smile was worse, a hundred times worse than being double-crossed by your squad leader. As soon as the thought took shape in his mind it was defined by the image of the blonde-haired man he had fought on the volcanic plains. Only, there was something different about this version of Wesker he realized. This Wesker wasn't as superiorly built nor quite as demonic as he had been in the dream. Was this a new memory? he asked himself. He didn't know. And it wasn't like he had Mia to discuss it with he thought bitterly. Swearing, he slammed his hand down on the table. How could he have been such a fool? He'd actually _believed_ she had feelings for him. The way she'd looked when they'd made love, the way she had held him, comforted him. He'd actually let himself begin to fall for her, like a piece of wreckage slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean. He'd even made some half-baked plans for the future, had given thought to asking her to go back to the hospital with him so that he wouldn't be alone. And she'd only been plotting to kill him the first chance she got!

_So why hadn't she_?

He looked at the letter he still held in his hand. She'd said that she had left him because it was the right thing to do, the only thing that she could do to keep him safe from the people she had been working for. She'd written that the night they had shared was a memory she would always treasure, that he'd given her the chance, the opportunity to experience what it was to be a human being, a woman. She'd closed the letter by urging him to return to the safety of the hospital, hinted that her defection from something she'd called the Agency would have them sending their other assassins- more dangerous than she was she'd said, after him. He looked at the necklace he'd slammed on the table earlier. She'd worn it every night, the only adornment he had ever seen her wear. Without thinking, Chris reached down and picked it up.

Inside his mind were images of how she had looked- laughing at some joke he'd made, listening to something he said, teasing him. And then as she'd looked the night before... _No_. The denial rammed into him, sharp and abrupt. With it, he tossed the necklace against the wall. She had chosen _not_ to kill him. He wasn't wrong about her feelings; she had made the conscious decision to leave him in order to protect him. So if she had run out on him to protect him, she'd also decided to confront her organization, make herself the target because she knew he wasn't mentally capable of fighting a group of well-trained assassins. _But she's one woman, alone. _

He sat there, holding her letter in his hand, as fear poured into him. Defected, confronting, and fighting. He realized he'd rather have believed that last night was nothing but a one night stand. He'd rather believe that she was walking into her apartment, heading to some boring little office job, anything but going off to confront an organization that had highly-trained assassins on their payroll. _GPA_. The paper was crushed beneath the tightening of his fist. Mia was after the GPA. Chris threw the balled up paper across the room. He was going after _her_. He left the room twenty minutes later, no longer thinking about his past or the inexplicable guilt and grief that constantly plagued him. A fire had been ignited inside his soul and was fueled by a burning hatred that settled like the comfortable and familiar arm of an old friend on his shoulders.


End file.
